Once the lights were back on and I was sitting on a porch swing in a makeshift campout area with a bottle of water in my hand, I felt a little calmer about the situation. Peals of thunder were still echoing outside, putting me on a never-ending edge, but with Anthony here, I felt much safer. He sat across from me in a rocking chair, eating a bag of salted pistachios, furrowing his eyebrows as he tried to break the shell of one. A smile adorned my face as I watched the muscles in his forearm tighten as he used all his effort. Finally the shell snapped, sending the small nut flying. He groaned in frustration. I did my best not to laugh at him as he sighed, picking out a new pistachio.

“Do you have a cell phone?” I inquired, breaking the silence.

He looked up at me, an apologetic expression crossing his face. “Sorry, I don’t. It died before I came to work so it’s in my car.”

“Oh.”

“You’re a girl. Where’s your phone?”

“In my car,” I muttered disdainfully. “I was in a rush to get the toilet paper and leave, so I forgot it.”

He nodded his head understandingly. “Ah. So you still live with your parents?”

“Yes…?” I responded hesitantly, wondering why he sounded a little thrown off. Was a high school living with her mom weird to him? Was I being weird? Did he think I was weird now? Oh my God he probably thought—

“It must be nice to not have to pay for dorming. Which college do you go to? Holyoke Community College? Smith?”

My mind blanked for a second. He thought I went to college? I dropped my gaze, biting my lip. What would he say if I told him I was still in high school? Would he think I was just some annoying teen? A little lie wouldn’t hurt anyone… If he went to the same college as Julius, that meant he went to HCC. “Actually, I go to Umass,” I told him confidently.

“Really?” he responded, sounding interested. “What’s your major?”

“Um, biology?” I questioned more than stated.

His eyes lit up. “Really? Same here!”

“W-what a coincidence,” I said, smiling wryly. I would choose the same major as him.

“Julius told me you were good in biology,” he commented thoughtfully. “You’re horrible in math though, right?”

Exactly how much did Julius talk about me? “Yeah, math definitely isn’t my strong point.”

“Mine either,” Anthony admitted with heart-stopping grin. God, he was too cute. “But sorry, I got off topic. We should really talk about what’s happening now.”

“Yeah, of course,” I said quickly, glad to get off the topic of college. Lying wasn’t exactly my forte. I could get away with it for a while, but the longer I lied, the easier it became to tell I was lying.

Anthony sat back in his chair, a frown appearing on his handsome face again. “Some power lines outside must be down because the phones in here don’t work. There isn’t really a way to contact the outside world at the moment.”

My chest constricted as I thought about my mom. Did she think I was dead? What about my brother? I would have given anything just to let them know I was okay. “What if we opened a cell phone here?”

“We could try that,” he responded slowly, “but chances are if the phones don’t work here, the phones don’t work for miles. How far do you live?”

“Like a mile away,” I informed him glumly.

He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. By the park, right?”

“You know where I live?”

“I know where Julius lives,” he corrected me. “I’ve been there before. I’ve been to your house once or twice too, to pick up your brother.”

And I wasn’t there to see him? Life was unfair sometimes. Well, it was making up for it now. It could have stuck me in here with some creep, but I’d somehow ended up with the god that sat before me. It was like a dream.

Anthony suddenly sat up, spilling his pistachios on the floor. “Whoa!”

“What?” I cried, twisting my head in the direction he was staring. Confusion ran through me when I realized nothing but the ceiling was there.

“If I’m here during this whole thing, do you think I’ll get overtime?”

I rolled my eyes, letting out a shaky chuckle. “No, I don’t think so Anthony.” His name rolled off my tongue smoothly. It was the first time I’d actually said it out loud. None of my friends knew of my crush on the college boy, so I didn’t have anyone to talk to about him— hence why it was my first time saying his name out loud.

“You can call me Ant if you want. Or Anthony. Or Tony. Or whatever,” he said with a smile.

“What do your friends call you?”

“Ant.” He cocked his head to the side. “Sometimes they call me Tony. I don’t really like Tony though.”

I wrinkled my nose. If his friends called him Ant, I didn’t want to call him that. I wasn’t exactly close enough to call him by his nickname. And I didn’t like the nickname Tony either. “I’ll go with Anthony.”

He shrugged, grinning again. “Whatever works. I think Ellie is cute, so I’m going to stick with that.”

Embarrassed, I let out a nervous laugh, letting my eyes roam back to the floor. Thunder rumbled overhead, filling in the silence that had settled. Anthony went back to eating his pistachios and I began to pick at the loose strands of my shirt. It hadn’t even been an hour since I’d been trapped in here and I was already bored.

How long would Anthony and I be trapped here? What was going on outside? What would happen if the storm worsened? Would we even know? What if something happened to my family? We wouldn’t have any clue about what was going on outside until someone opened the store. Until then we were stuck.

“I’m going to go get something else to eat,” Anthony announced abruptly, pushing up from his chair.

“Okay,” I mumbled, gazing into his bright eyes. When he blinked I forced myself to look away.

“Do you want anything?”

I shook my head. Hunger was the absolute least thing I was feeling. “Nah.”

“I’ll be right back then,” he notified me, his back entering my vision as he headed toward the food aisle.

The ceiling rattled with the next crack of thunder. Unnerved, I gazed up at the ceiling. What if it gave out? Would it crush us and kill us? I forced myself to look away, deciding to put my attention on the garden gnomes that stood behind Anthony’s seat. After a few seconds of that images of them coming to life and killing me flashed through my mind. I cursed my imagination.

“Anthony!” I called, jumping o my feet and slowly moving away, my eyes never leaving the creepy lawn ornaments. “W-wait up!”

The college boy, who was a good distance away, froze, keeping his left foot suspended in the air. I couldn’t help but smile at his actions as I jogged to catch up with him. His eyes flashed in amusement as he turned toward me. “Scared?”

“What? No,” I denied, hoping he didn’t notice the humiliated expression on my face. Who got scared of gnomes?

“Uh-huh,” he responded skeptically. “It’s alright, Ellie. I’ll be your knight in shining armor.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “And protect me from what?”

He smiled mysteriously before beginning to walk again. “There are a lot of… things in here you don’t want to know about.”

“Now you’re just trying to scare me.”

“Am I?”

I pursed my lips. “No. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

He glanced over his shoulder at me. “I wouldn’t be so sure. I work here and at night I have to close sometimes. Usually there are the cries of a ghost. I think it’s someone who was murdered here a long time ago looking for revenge. Come to think of it, I think I’ve seen her before. Empty sockets for eyes, blood bleeding down like tears, flesh gouged out, barely any hair, very skeletal like features…”

“You’re not scaring me,” I told him boldly, ignoring the dry feeling in my mouth. I knew he was kidding, but…

“I’m really not— AH!” he suddenly shouted, his eyes widening.

“No!” I cried, throwing myself toward him in a panic.

Immediately he burst out laughing, catching me easily in his arms. “I did scare you!”

Scowling and blushing, I pushed myself away from him. “You suddenly shouted! Of course I’d get scared!”

“No, you definitely thought I saw the ghost.”

“There’s no such things as ghosts,” I stated matter-of-factly. “You spend way too much time with Julius.”

“So do you. He told me you were scared of ghosts.”

“I don’t believe in them!”

“He told me you’d say that if anyone asked you if you did.”

I put my hands on my hips, narrowing my eyes. “Seriously. How much do you and Julius talk about me?”

Dimples appeared on his face as he smirked. “Ask Julius.”

“Erg…” Julius was one of those people who believed his friends were his pets. Every time I learned something new, for example, making an omelet, he would pet my head and try to give me a dog treat. He was kind of like a doting brother, or father, except he was my neighbor. A very pesky neighbor. “I’m going to guess he never shuts up about me then.”

“Well maybe sometimes,” Anthony responded honestly. “It’s not that bad though. You’re really interesting and funny.”

“Here’s a wild guess— he tells you all the times I trip, or fail a test, or the like?”

A sheepish expression crossed Anthony’s face. “Well, yeah. Although he also says good things about you!” he added quickly. “I feel like I’ve known you for ten years. It’s hard to believe today is the first time we’ve ever talked.”

And I’ve been crushing on you for two months, I thought in response. I wasn’t about to say that out loud though. “Haha, yeah, weird…”

He started walking again and I quickly forced myself to catch up with him. Instead of trailing behind him, I decided to walk next to him. With each step our arms brushed, causing goosebumps to go up mine. I waited for him to take a step away from me, but he never did. My eyes traveled to his face, noticing the small smile on his lips. Immediately I dropped my eyes, grinning to myself. He might not have been enjoying the graze of our arms as much as I was, but he definitely didn’t dislike it.

“So I’m thinking it would be okay if we ate or drank anything we want,” he told me as we came to the food aisles. “If the power goes out, all the refrigerated stuff will go to waste anyway.”

I looked at him uneasily. “Are you sure? What if we get in trouble?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “We have to eat and drink to survive. Do you really think people are going to have a problem with that?”

“Er… No?”

“Right. So for now, we feast.”

With amused eyes, I watched as he sauntered over to the nearest fridge, opening the door, and peering inside it. After a few seconds he pulled out a Lunchable, a boyish grin crossing his face. “Want one of these beasts?”

“Oh, I don’t really like those,” I responded honestly, wrinkling my nose. “They’re kinda bland.”

From his facial expression, one might have thought I’d slapped him across the face. “You don’t like Lunchables?” he cried, looking at me in horror. “It’s not even… I can’t even… How?”

“Um, I liked them when I was younger, if that helps,” I told him, pressing my lips together so I wouldn’t laugh.

He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re not human.”

I gave him a flat look. “I’m not the only one who doesn’t like Lunch—”

“La la la! I don’t want to hear it!” he interjected, dropping his Lunchable and covering his ears.

A short laugh left my lips. “Anthony, stop that.”

He grinned back at me, letting his hands drop to his sides. After picking up the box he dropped to the floor, he opened the fridge door again and pulled out two more. When he caught my stare he shrugged. “I always eat like this.”

“Why aren’t you fat?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

“I play lacrosse,” he informed me. “There’s practice six times a week for three hours and we do a lot of running.”

Well, that definitely explained it. Julius was on the lacrosse team as well. When he’d come over after practice, he’d be soaked in sweat, and I could smell him from a mile away. My nose wrinkled at the memory. A sweaty Julius was not a welcome Julius. But… I sneaked at peek at Anthony. What would he look like sweaty?

“Attractive.”

I jumped in shock, my eyes widening. Had I said that out loud? Holy crap. My face burned shamefully. “I—”

“Look at this Ellie,” Anthony ordered, holding out one of the Lunchable boxes to me. “This kid’s face looks like a butt.”

My shoulders sagged in relief when I realized he was talking about the kid on the box, not himself. “It does,” I agreed after taking a look at it.

“What do you want to eat?” he inquired, shifting all three Lunchables under his arm. “We’ll grab something for you then go sit down at the lawn and yard equipment again.”

“Oh, I’m not really…” My stomach rumbled loudly before I could finish my sentence. Okay. Maybe I was…

Anthony grinned. “You’re not really what?”

I chuckled, putting a hand over my stomach. “I guess I am kind of hungry…”

“Well, I just happen to have a wide variety of food for you to choose from! Go on, pick your poison!” he responded, sweeping out one of his arms.

“How about filet mignon?”

He grimaced. “Oh, sorry! We just ran out of that. However! I can offer you something that’s just as good.”

I gave him an interested look. “Oh really? What would that be?”

“A nice bowl of Cookie Crisp with some ice cold milk,” he told me, his eyes twinkling in amusement. “So how does it sound?”

“Sounds good,” I said, unable to deny his enthusiasm. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t exactly enjoy Cookie Crisp either.

He gestured for me to follow him, pausing briefly at the fridge that held the milk to pull out a small, plastic bottle. After handing it to me, the young man trotted around the corner to the cereal aisle. I dogged him, not wanting to be left alone for a minute.

Not that I was scared.

Nope, I wasn’t scared.

Anthony suddenly stopped dead and I nearly ran into him. He turned to me, his lips curving down. “They’re all out of Cookie Crisp…”

“That’s okay,” I responded, smiling at his disappointment. “Fruit Loops are just as okay with me.”

“Sure.” He grabbed a box of said cereal from the shelf, holding it in his free hand. “Anything else?”

I shook my head.

“Then let’s go.”

Together we headed off back to the rear end of the store. The rain pounding against the ceiling had grown more violent. Each drop sounded like a cap gun going off. Anxiety was beginning to creep over me again, but I pushed it back. The building was reinforced with metal. It wasn’t going to give out. “How long do you think we’ll be stuck in here for?” I wondered out loud.

“It really depends on the storm and the wreckage it causes,” Anthony stated. “According to the weather forecast I watched this morning, this storm is supposed to last three days.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, blinking in surprise. “I forgot. The radio said that.”

“Don’t you watch the news?”

“Not all the time,” I admitted sheepishly.

Anthony shook his head at me. “Ellie, you need to know what’s going on in the world.”

I pressed my lips into a straight line. Was he really going to lecture me about not watching the news? “I can’t help it. It’s boring.”

“So is class, but you pay attention in that don’t you?”

“Sometimes…”

He nudged me in the side with his elbow. “By your responses, I’m really interested in how you got into Umass.”

“Me too,” I said, forcing out a laugh.

As we grew closer to the lawn section, he came to a halt, turning his head down to me. “I’m going to go grab you some plastic bowls and spoons. Do you mind taking our food to the chairs?”

I stared at him, blinking. He was planning on leaving me by myself? “Can’t I go with you?”

“You can,” he replied slowly, pulling his eyebrows together, “but you don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Wait, Ellie… Don’t tell me my little cock-and-bull story scared you.”

“It didn’t,” I snapped.

He looked at me skeptically, a grin slowly spreading across his face. “You are scared, aren’t you?”

“No!”

By his face I could tell he didn’t believe me. “Don’t worry, Ellie! Just stick by my side. I’ll keep you safe from the ghosts.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts!”

He laughed, starting to walk again. “I guess I could use the extra hand. It’s so hard carrying two plastic bags by myself. Just look at my weak muscles!”

I glowered at his back for a moment. Judging by the tightness of his blue t-shirt, he definitely didn’t have weak muscles. “You don’t have to be a jerk about it! You’re the one who scared me in the first place!”

“Hey, hey!” he protested, glancing over his shoulder at me. “Don’t get angry. I think it’s cute.”

Cute? He thought I was cute? A warm feeling through my body and I felt myself grinning like an idiot. If he thought it was cute, then I was terrified.

“Keep up Ellie or I’ll leave you alone with those horrid ghosties!”

I snapped out of my euphoria, huffing a little bit. Was being called cute worth all the teasing he was bound to do to me?

I knew that answer at once.

Of course it was.

________________________________________________

Chapter two! I hope you liked it! Nothing too exciting happened though. When I upload on my home computer, I just realized that my italics don't work... So now I have to go through who knows how many chapters of my other stories to fix it. Blah.

I love Damian from the Glee Project.

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Today's song is I Just Wanna Run by The Downtown Fiction.

Today's story is The Girl in the Striped Bikini by XKellyAshtenX! Here's the summary!

Every summer Cale Morrison and his family retreat to their rental home in Huntington Beach, California. When Cale first arrives he thought everything about this summer would be the same. Then he meets Kendal Bryce on beach. Disabled by his social skills for the oppisite sex, he has no idea how to talk to her. He thinks its hopeless. Determined, he makes it a goal to talk to this girl. When his twin sister befriends Kendal he hopes this will help his chances with her. But will Cale ever be able to overcome his shyness to get the girl?